Washington, DC — February 4, 1994, National Prayer Breakfast.
(..) The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is the war against children, the direct murder of the innocent, the murder of the Mother against herself.
If we accept that a Mother kills her own child, how then can we tell others not to kill each other? How can we convince a woman not to have an abortion? As in everything, we must persuade her with love and remind ourselves that loving means giving until she hurts. Jesus even gave her life to love us. So, the Mother, who is thinking about having an abortion, must be helped to love, that is, to give until her plans hurt, or her free time, so that she respects the life of her son. she. The Father of that child, whoever she is, must also give until she hurts. With the abortion, the Mother does not learn to love, but to kill even her own child to solve her problems.
And with abortion, the Father is told that he does not have to bear any responsibility for the child he has brought to life. The Father is capable of putting other women in the same circumstance. Therefore abortion only leads to more abortions. Any country that accepts abortion does not teach its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.
Many people are very concerned about the children of India, with the children of Africa where many die of hunger, etc. Many people also worry about all the violence in this great nation of the United States. Worrying about this is good. But almost always these same people are not interested in the millions who are being intentionally killed by their own Mothers. And this is the biggest destroyer of peace today – abortion blinded people.
And for this I appeal in India and everywhere – “let us bring back the children.” The child is a gift from God to the family. Each child is specially created in the image and likeness of God for great things. To love and be loved. In this year of the family, we must bring children to the center of our care and attention. This is the only way this world can survive, because our children are the only hope for the future. When the elderly are called to where God is, only their children can replace them.
But what is God telling us? He says: “Even if the Mother forgets her son, I will not forget you. I have engraved you in the palm of my hand.” We are all engraved in the palm of his hands; the child who was aborted is also engraved in the palm of his hand from the moment of conception and is called, by God, to love and be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God never forgets us.
I will tell you something beautiful. We fight against abortion with adoption, taking care of the Mother and adopting the child. We have saved thousands of lives. We have told clinics, hospitals and police stations: “Please don’t destroy the children, we will take care of them.” So we always have someone who says to Mothers in trouble: “Come, we’ll take care of you, we’ll find a home for your child.” And we have a great demand for couples who can’t have children but will never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said “Whoever receives this child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus, but by aborting a child, the couple rejects Jesus.
Please don’t murder the children. I love the children. Please give me the children. I am willing to accept any child that they wanted to abort and give it to a married couple who will love it and be loved by that child.
In our home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortion. These children have brought so much love and joy to their adoptive Parents and have grown up filled with love and joy. I know that couples should plan their families, but for that there is natural family planning.
The way to plan families is by natural means, not by contraceptive means. By destroying the power to give life, through contraception, the couple harms themselves. This shifts attention to themselves and destroys the gift of loving each other. In loving one another, the attention is on the love of one another. By loving each other, the couple gives attention to each other and this is what happens with natural family planning, and not towards themselves as it happens egoistically with contraception. Once living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion easily follows as the next step.
I know that there are big problems in the world, that many couples do not love each other enough to use natural family planning. We can’t solve all the world’s problems, but don’t let us bring you the worst problem of all, and that’s the one that destroys love. And this is what happens when people practice contraception and abortion.
There are many poor people in the world. They can teach us many beautiful things. Once, one of them came to thank me for teaching her natural family planning and said, “You who practice chastity are the best at teaching us natural family planning because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other.” And what this poor person said is very true. Poor people may not have anything to eat, they may not have a home to live in, but they are great people and very rich spiritually.
When I pick up a hungry person on the street, I give him a plate of rice and a piece of bread. But a person who is alone, feels rejected, like nobody loves them, frightened, that person who has been rejected by society, has a poverty that is much more difficult to overcome and that is spiritual poverty. Abortion, which follows contraception, leads people to be spiritually poor, and that is the worst poverty and the most difficult to overcome.
Those who are materially poor can be wonderful people. One afternoon we went to pick up four people from the street. One of them was in horrible condition. I told the Sisters: “You take care of the other three; I’ll take care of the one that looks worse.” So I did all my love could do for her. I laid her down on a bed and she had a beautiful smile on her face. She took me by the hand, and said a single word: “thank you” and then she died.
I couldn’t do anything but examine my conscience before her. And she asked “What would I say if I were in her place?” My answer was simple. I would have tried to attract attention. She would have said: “I’m hungry, I’m dying, I’m cold, I’m in pain” or something. But she gave me much more, she gave me her great love. And he died with a smile on her face. There was also a man we picked up from the sewers, half eaten by worms and, after we brought him into the house, he just said:
“I have lived like an animal in the street, but I will die like an angel, loved and cared for.”
Then, after we removed the worms from her body, all she said, with a big smile was, “Sister, I’m going home to God” and then she died. It was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man that he could speak like that, without blaming anyone, without comparing anything. Like an angel, this is the greatness of people who are spiritually rich even though they are materially poor. We are not social workers. We may do social work in the eyes of some people, but we must be contemplatives in the heart of the world. Because we touch the body of Christ and are always in his presence.
You too must bring the presence of God to your families, because the family that prays together stays together.
There is too much hate, too much misery, and with our prayers, with our sacrifices we start from home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we do.
If we are contemplatives in the heart of the world with all the problems, they can never discourage us. We must always remember that God tells us in the Scriptures: “Even if a Mother forgets her child in her womb, something impossible, but if she forgets it, I will never forget you.” And that is why I am here addressing you. I want to meet the poor here, right in their own homes first. And start loving ah. Be bearers of good news to your family first. And then to your neighbors. Do you know them? I had a great neighborly love experience with a Hindu family. A man came to our home and said: “Mother Teresa, there is a family that has not eaten for a long time. Do something.” So I took some rice and went immediately. And I saw the children, his eyes shone with hunger. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen hunger. I do and very often. And the Mother of the family took the rice that I gave them and went outside. When she returned, I asked her, “Where did she go? What did she do?” And she gave me a very simple answer: “They are hungry too.” What struck me was that she knew that, and who they were as well. A Muslim family, and she knew it. She did not bring more rice that afternoon because she wanted them, Hindus and Muslims, to enjoy the joy of sharing. And the children radiated joy, sharing joy and peace with her Mother because she knew how to love until she hurt. And they see that that’s where she begins, at home with the family.
So, as this family demonstrates, God never forgets us and there is always something you and I can do. We can keep the joy of loving Jesus in our hearts, and share that joy with everyone we come in contact with. Let us make one determination, that no child be rejected or unloved, or not cared for, or killed and thrown away. And give until he hurts, with a smile.
Since I talk a lot about giving with a smile, a teacher from the United States once asked me: “Are you married?” and I said, “Yes, and sometimes I find it very difficult to give my husband, Jess, a smile, because he can be quite demanding at times.” This is truly true.
And that’s where love comes from, when it’s demanding, and when we can still give it with joy.
One of the most demanding things for me is to travel anywhere – and with publicity. I told Jesus that if I don’t go to heaven for anything else, to go to heaven at least for all the trips, with all the publicity, that I do, that has purified me and sacrificed me, and in truth it has prepared to go to heaven. If we remember that God loves us, and that we can love others as he loves us, then America can become a sign of peace to the world.
From here, a warning to care for the weakest, the unborn, must go out to the world. If you become a burning beacon of justice and peace in the world, then you will truly be true to what the founders of this country stood for. God bless you!
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